According to WZZM-13, the author Chris Heath, spoke with shooter Jason Dalton's wife, his friends, his Uber clients, neighbors and survivors.

GQ reports the reason Dalton went to the Meadows Townhomes that evening, where the rampage began, was to give an Uber ride to a girl named Maci.

Maci had ordered an Uber to pick up her boyfriend, DeAllen, and bring him to the Meadows Townhomes. Instead of putting in his address though for the pick-up, Maci put in the address of the complex office. She attempted to communicate this to Dalton via text.

Shooting survivor Tiana Carruthers has testified that Dalton approached her at the Meadows Townhomes asking for a "Maise or Misty." When Tiana replied that was not her name, Dalton left to get a gun and returned to shoot her.

Dalton then drove to his parents' house to meet and trade cars with his wife. About thirty minutes had passed since the shooting when Dalton called Maci back, presumably after realizing the woman he'd shot was not Maci. Maci says they spoke for about three minutes:

“He was, ‘Sorry, I don’t have time for this anymore. I have better things to do, and you’re just wasting my time, and I basically can’t do this anymore—you can call someone else [for a ride].’ ” Mostly, Dalton was unpleasant. 'He was really sketchy and rude,' she recalled. 'Like, he was extremely rude to me.' "

Earlier that day, while driving a different Uber passenger, Dalton got a phone call. The passenger said it was after this call that Dalton hung up and floored it, speeding in a way that was alarming.

It had been assumed the call came from Dalton's wife, Carole. The call did come from her phone, but it was Dalton's son on the line, asking if he wanted anything to eat from the restaurant they were in:

What might have seemed like a crucial moment was actually a brief, banal call from his teenage son about a chicken dinner."